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Florida Accused of Concealing Worst Tuberculosis Outbreak In 20 Years
NotSanguine writes "The state of Florida has been struggling for months with what the Centers for Disease Control describe as the worst tuberculosis outbreak in the United States in twenty years. Although a CDC report went out to state health officials in April encouraging them to take concerted action, the warning went largely unnoticed and nothing has been done. The public did not even learn of the outbreak until June, after a man with an active case of TB was spotted in a Jacksonville soup kitchen. The Palm Beach Post has managed to obtain records on the outbreak and the CDC report, though only after weeks of repeated requests. These documents should have been freely available under Florida's Sunshine Law."
And, I'll also throw this in there: homeless people and the poor often are not as likely to be diagnosed, and, due to this and other reasons, aren't as likely to receive treatment. Oh, and take your ObamaCare issues somewhere where people give a shit about offtopic things like that.
Of course it's all Obama's fault. Even though Rick Scott(R) closed the last TB hospital 3 months after a report from the freaking CDC came out detailing the outbreak.
But hey! Don't let the facts get in the way of your Fox news deluded rant.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Florida just closed down it's only state hospital specializing in tuberculosis cases on July 2nd. Bad timing.
Report: Fla closed TB hospital as cases spiked
Dear Editors and NotSanguine,
When you copy and paste an entire paragraph from a linked source without actually citing that source as the author of said material, you're committing plagiarism. NotSanguine did not write this blurb; Muriel Kane of Raw Story did.
Respect authorship.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
But don't worry, this is all the evil Republican's fault.
One of the reasons I abandoned the Republican party was because they could never face up to their own failures or take responsibilities for their mistakes.
Think about that when you're standing next to the coughing homeless person at the train station or one of your kids gets diagnosed with antibiotic resistant TB. It would serve you right for sticking up for governor Penis Head.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I fail to see the relevance. This is not a political problem. The Lord will cure these people. If they cause an epidemic, killing millions, that's obviously just His will.
Currently just about every one of our southern states is racing toward third world status just as fast as they can and you think giving them more power is a good idea? You don't have states like Mississipi and South Carolina in Canada.
I hate relative terms when there is no indication as to what the term is relative to. For example, if the second worst outbreak in the last 20 years involved 80 people then this one could be the worst and involve 99 people.
What I would rather see is how important is this outbreak. The fact that it is the worst in 20 years does not mean that it is something to be concerned with. The questions to ask are as follows;
1. How much of the population is at risk?
2. Would spreading the information cause more harm than good. Will the populous be more frightened that necessary.
The 13 death tole can be misleading too. Are most of the deaths in people who live on the streets, avoid contact with health facilities and have compromised immune systems. I am not saying to ignore them but health warnings would not help as they would be ignored.
Whos the governor of florida? Republican Rick Scott
Which party controls both the florida house and florida senate...Republicans
Who voted to defund the TB hospital in Florida...Republican state legislators
Which governor said he would not accept federal "Obamacare" funding to expend medicaid which provides TB medication ....Republican Rick Scott.
The case could be made that a 'massive power grab' is a hell of a lot better than no health care at all.
Mind you I'm from Australia. Needed 2 stitches recently, went in, showed my Medicare card, got the stitches and walked out end of story.
Too easy.
How about fuck you, anonymous. Too many people equate liberal with liberty when, in fact, the opposite is quite the case - they're a mutually exclusive arrangement.
Only if you're using the FOX notions of what liberal and liberty mean.
The more that people see this, the better off this country will be. Not that Repubs are much better, but they are. Libertarian is the way.
Libertarians are just Republicans who aren't pretending to be on a Mission from God.
Don't like my opinions or what I post, use your mod points or stfu.
Or maybe reply? But no, your notion of "liberty" is "my way or the highway".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And when you can't pay the fine, because you can't afford that either, you'll go to jail
This is straight from the law itself, under section 5000a, page 131:
‘‘(2) SPECIAL RULES.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law—
‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary shall not—
‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or
‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.’’.
:(){
Isn't this the Libertarian paradise the Ron Paul legions envisage?
I don't know, I've never been to Somalia.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Uh, this article indicates 11 people were quarantined in Florida under court order last year to treat TB. If the people involved are willing to self quarantine at home and take the meds its preferred to not quarantine because its very expensive and punishing to people who are victims, not perpetrators of anything. In this case the outbreak was a worst case scenario because it was among homeless people, the first case being a schizophrenic, who can't self quarantine, can't get good health care, and about whom most people could care less.
A problem seems to be the Republicans who control Florida closed the hospital where TB cases were quarantined. They've apparently been putting the infected homeless in motels as an alternative which isn't the greatest idea since they will come in contact with a lot of people, but it is less bad than homeless shelters and wandering the streets. They are trying to send nurses around to make them take the antibiotics, so it helps they are in a fixed location, but still.
Duval County is historically Republican, though its pretty evenly divided now. Florida has been under Republican governors since 1999, The legislature has been Republican dominated since the mid 90's.
Its incredibly pointless sit here and play our stupid partisan game on this issue, but if any party is to blame it would probably be the Republicans.
To be honest /. discourse in particular, and in America in general, is getting so sickening its getting hard to read, and the posts tonight just reaffirms. A very sad and disturbing crisis turns in to another round of shrill partisan trolling and you, jmorris, always seem to be the right wing ring leader kicking it off. There are some left wing ring leader that don't particularly help but they pale in comparison to you.
It would probably be better if we all stopped being Democrats and Republicans, and started being Americans, and start working on ways to fix our inceasingly screwed up country. In particular our government is going broke at all levels, large numbers of our fellow citizens are going broke, we can't seem to provide even basic services that most would take for granted in the world's supposedly richest and most powerful country, a very small number people are getting fabulously wealthy and most of them apparently could care less if their country is unraveling around them as long as life in the gated communities is still good.
@de_machina
Tuberculosis isn't the only disease making a comeback this year. Pertussis is also coming back.
Across the United States, 8,159 provisional pertussis cases have been reported to the CDC as of May 5, 2012, representing an 87 percent increase compared to the same time period in 2011. Pertussis cases reached epidemic levels in Washington state this year, and cases are trending high in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
From MarketWatch.
So fear not. If you've been coughing for weeks, it may only be whooping cough, which does little or no damage to your lungs, instead of tuberculosis, which can do major damage to your lungs.
Also, if you're coughing, do your best to get into a meeting with your CEO/CTO/CFO/VP/etc. Really, any major corporate officer will do. Biological warfare is a fine answer to class warfare.
You're completely delusional. My relatives in Ireland, England, and Australia have much better healthcare than we have here in the US. They don't have to waste ages filling out forms; they just get care because they are citizens. And you know what? They pay less for their healthcare than we do.
Yes, you heard that right: we pay as much in taxes for Medicare & Medicaid as they do for universal healthcare. Plus, on top of medicare/medicaid, we also pay private insurance. Here's a breakdown of how we pay through the nose for our stupid healthcare system.
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/oecd042111.cfm
We should stop paying private companies and make Medicare universal. There's no reason healthcare in the US should be so miserable. If you still want a private plan, great, but stop making me pay twice what my cousins pay.
Oh, and by the way, Australia is not a depressed economy. And no, doctors don't consider quitting over "Obamacare". Creating a phony survey isn't the same as actually doing real work:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/10/comically-awful-survey-says-83-percent-of-docto/187029
Freedom of speech was meant to protect you from the government taking any action based on knowing you were saying things the government may not like.
It affords you protection from the government, but not protection from your fellow citizens thinking you're a moron.
paintball
Quebec contributes significantly to the country.
Quebec would have to declare bankruptcy though, but that's not an indication of the productive output of the province, but of rampant government corruption and mismanagement, across both the Quebec LIberals and PQ.
How is it that the most taxed jurisdiction in North America has to deal with massive social unrest due to hiking a heavily subsidized tuition?
I'm a quebecker, it makes no sense...
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Its incredibly pointless sit here and play our stupid partisan game on this issue,
Well said.
but if any party is to blame it would probably be the Republicans.
Oh well. Drink to pointlessness!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Sorry but the BCG vaccine doesn't work in most adults and there's a lot of work going on to find out why (here's a recent paper with a possible hint:
http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/myvu/news/2009/05/21/study-of-ineffective-tb-vaccine-may-lead-to-new-vaccines.80590/
and therefore treating the disease when it appears becomes crucial.
I know this is lost on some of you here, but there's a continuum between "world's largest inmate population" and "anarchy."
I'll leave guessing which end we're at as an exercise for the reader.
DATABASE WOW WOW
I know this is lost on some of you here, but there's a continuum between "world's largest inmate population" and "anarchy.
Truly, there's no reason a nation as special as us couldn't have both.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You have your facts wrong, but in an interesting way. We never decided that we couldn't force people into quarantine. One of the first pieces I ever read on drug resistant tuberculosis included an interview with a guy shackled to a bed in a New York hospital because he repeatedly skipped his meds. I didn't dig up that story which my quick search, but I did find this NOVA timeline. Check it out:
And a direct quote (from the as of 2004 part):
The Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, part of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases, controls quarantine issues in the United States today. The Division oversees eight national quarantine stationsâ"in New York, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. At present, federal, state, and some city health officials have the right to isolate or quarantine individuals who are ill or may become ill with a potentially lethal infectious disease.
So we never stopped quarantining people. Anyway, political correctness has nothing to do with TB treatment, or with drug resistant strains of TB. From my readings, drug resistant TB incubates in Russian Prisons and Mexican day laborers, and in India. Given your self professed aversion to political correctness, I'm surprised you skipped over those populations and leapt to "immune compromised patients with no self control." You may have meant inmates in the aforementioned Russian prisoners, who literally have no control over their surroundings or their treatments, but it sounded like an unsubtle swipe at gay people. That part of your comment sounded an awful lot like 90s-era hate speech, which had moved from "AIDS is God actively killing homosexuals to", "HIV isn't a problem because it only kills people who lack self-control [and have un-Christian sex before marriage]". I have never heard, anywhere, that people with AIDS are contributing to drug resistant TB. If they stop taking their meds, they die.
Lastly, you seem to be upset about "ObamaTax". That's okay. But to clarify, did you really think a government that can force people people to buy insurance couldn't already force them into quarantine? Or is the costs aspect that upsets you? Maybe you have some nuanced views, but you sure seem like a troll, so I don't mind feeding you LMGTFY links. But even if you are, I didn't want you worrying about our government not being able to quarantine people ;-)
As a western country, USA is pretty third world
83% of doctors have considered quitting over obamacare.
That story about 83% of doctors threatening to quit under Obamacare is bullshit.
Slate had a nice story about it. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/07/09/about_that_83_percent_of_doctors_hate_obamacare_so_much_they_might_quit_poll.html
About That "83 Percent of Doctors Hate Obamacare So Much, They Might Quit" Poll
By David Weigel
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012, at 5:12 PM ET
"Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association."
What is the "Doctor Patient Medical Association"? Short answer: A bunch of right-wing Republican wackos, like Kathryn Serkes and Mark Schiller, who previously claimed Obamacare would kill off elderly sick people.
"The survey was conducted by fax and online from April 18 to May 22, 2012. DPMAF obtained the office fax numbers of 36,000 doctors in active clinical practice, and 16, 227 faxes were successfully delivered... The response rate was 4.3% for a total of 699 completed surveys."
Translation: 83% of 4.3% said they considered leaving under Obamacare. That's 3.6% of those polled.
But most people who have taken a college statistics course would throw a survey with a 4.3% response rate in the shredder.
They "considered" leaving medicine. What were they leaving medicine for? Real estate sales? Financial planning? Opening a restaurant? There aren't too many other occupations that can bring in a doctor's salary in the US. Doctors are always threatening to leave, but few do.
Not only that, the Republican legislators and Governor closed down the only hospital in Florida that was treating the poor, homeless, substance abusers and mentally ill people who are the main ones who get TB, according to TFA. The Republicans knew about the CDC report as they pushed to close the hospital. That's why they concealed it.
Now, even if they wanted to confine them, they would have no place to put them. Or rather -- they're putting them up now in motels. You realize that hospitals have special laundry equipment to sterilize the laundry. Motels don't.
This is a time bomb. They're growing drug-resistant TB, which is incurable.
I think you misunderstood me: With freedom of anonymity comes freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not guarantee anonymity. You shouldn't have to be anonymous to be able to speak freely, and it is to America merit that you have freedom of speach both anonymously and otherwise.
And I am certainly not trying to banish it. My point above about not posting as AC is that with freedom of speech you should not be ashamed or fearful of making your opinions and views known as yourself.
A TB outbreak is an emergency. No making immediately sure all affected are treated is just stupid. In the modern wold, nobody messes with this stuff. People that refuse treatment or do not take their medication go to closed hospital wards within a few days, and that does not require a court order initially.
Mess with TB, and what you get is resistant strains that often cannot be cured anymore and people will start dying. This is one area where saving money initially is very, very expensive.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Ron Paul is the only hope we have to cast off our corporate overlords.
Oh really? His new "Internet Freedom" campaign is all about giving corporations the freedom to restrict the Internet in the name of profits. If he's fighting "our corporate overlords" by campaigning to give them even more power, I think he's doing it wrong.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I'm exactly the opposite. I'm wary of multinational corporations but I'm downright afraid of what government can and does do when given free reign. The difference being that at least I can switch the company I'm dealing with but the government is the ultimate monopoly and represents the ultimate tragedy of the commons where people vote themselves goodies without caring how it affects the overall health of the economy.
Please do tell me how you plan to "switch the company" you're dealing with when said company is, for example, poisoning your well water through fracking, or polluting a river or the air around your house. A strict libertarian philosophy has no solution for externalities, other than hand-waving, i.e. everyone can form class-action lawsuits! Or the invisible hand will magically deal with it!
The solution is simple: You should be wary of both corporations and government and support checks and balances on both.
I'm exactly the opposite. I'm wary of multinational corporations but I'm downright afraid of what government can and does do when given free reign.
Most of the really terrible things (Western) governments do these days are in the name of corporate profits, because corporations have gained power over government. At least doing things for the public good is in the mission statement for government. The corporation's only interest is in acquiring as much of the pie as it can for itself and its investors. If you don't see a conflict of interest between absolute greed and the common good, then you've drowned in the kool aid.
The difference being that at least I can switch the company I'm dealing with but the government is the ultimate monopoly and represents the ultimate tragedy of the commons where people vote themselves goodies without caring how it affects the overall health of the economy.
Because corporations would never do something for themselves at the detriment of the economy as a whole, right?